Life's Little Mysteries: Why Do Women Wear High Heels and Why Did the Kamikaze Pilots Wear Helmets?
April 22, 2008
Life is full of mysteries. It’s part of what keeps living so darn interesting. Well, here’s a list of mysteries that most all of us have encountered … but few of us have figured out.
In this Daily Mail article, Robert Frank uses economics to explain these situations. Feel free to express your own explanations, or comment on these, in the Community Comments section below.
1. Why do women endure uncomfortable high heels?
High heels are uncomfortable and make walking more difficult. But they also increase height, as well as forcing your back to arch, pushing your bosom forward and your buttocks back, thereby accentuating the female form -- and men, apparently, prefer an exaggerated female figure.
2. Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
In 1944, the Japanese military launched a campaign of kamikaze attacks, in which pilots attempted to crash explosives-laden planes into American warships. Why did these pilots wear helmets for a suicide mission?
Planes often experienced severe turbulence before reaching their targets, so they needed to be protected so that they could get there. But more importantly, it was not actually the express intention that these pilots commit suicide -- their charge was to destroy their targets by any means necessary. The hope was that the pilots would return safely, even though the expectation was that most would not.
3. Why are DVDs sold in larger packages than CDs, even though the discs are the same size?
Prior to the appearance of CDs, most music was sold on vinyl records. To accommodate stores, CD cases were designed to be a little less than half as wide as record sleeves, so that two rows of CD cases could fit on a record rack with a divider between them.
But before DVDs became popular, most film rental stores carried videotapes in the VHS format. The videos were usually displayed side by side with their spines out. Making DVD cases the same height enabled stores to display their new DVD stocks on existing shelves.
What else can you find out in the link below?
Call it useless trivia or call it fascinating information … either way, these mysteries get you thinking. And the more you use your brain, the sharper your mind will remain. So go ahead, click on the link below and get your mind working.
- Why do women’s clothes button from the left, while men’s button from the right?
- Why are petrol caps on the driver’s side of some cars, but the passenger side of others?
- Why do taxi drivers stop working early on rainy days?
- Why are whales in danger of extinction, but not chickens?
- Why is milk sold in rectangular containers, while soft drinks are in round ones?
- Why don’t more people wear shoes with Velcro fasteners?